The chief flight instructor of the legendary Tuskegee Airmen, and the so-called “Father of Black Aviation,” C. Alfred Anderson will be immortalized on a US Postal Service stamp today, in a ceremony at Bryn Mawr College, Pa., according to a March 12 release. As the 15th stamp in USPS’s “Distinguished American Series,” the 70-cent first class stamp recognizes Anderson’s achievements in aviation in the 1920s and 1930s, when he completed the first round trip trans continental flight by a black aircraft pilot (along with physician Albert Forsythe). In 1940, after President Roosevelt established the Civilian Pilot Training Program, Anderson was named the chief flight instructor at the Tuskegee Institute’s Moton Field, which served as the training pipeline for what became the 99th Pursuit Squadron, which served with distinction in the European theater of World War II. After the war, Anderson spent the following decades dedicated to aviation education. He died in Tuskegee, Ala., in 1996 at the age of 89.
Amid NATO’s continued push to ramp up air defenses in Eastern Europe, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall swung by seven allied countries to boost relations last week, including those on Russia’s and Ukraine’s doorstep.